Wednesday, 12 August 2015

Letter from Santa

From Xmas 2011 and Austerity has reached the North Pole

Dear All,

First of all, Christmas is postponed, probably until Q2 in 2012. The reason is that we’ve all been waiting for the markets to quiet down so I can shuffle some funds around before we can get into serious toy production. What? You’re surprised? Of course I need hard cash to get this show on the road, did you really think I finance it all with magic beans? Stability bonds?

And another thing. There’s going to be a delivery charge. Normally a bit of pie and whisky is a suitable trip for my chimney acrobatics, but as things are tight, you want to leave around €20 per kid with the booze. Oh, and no cheap supermarket stuff. A single malt is what’s required, or at a push, some Wild Turkey. It’s purely medicinal and helps keep the cold out while I’m riding the jetstream.

I’m also going to tighten up the rules on who’s been naughty. Frankly, being a kind old soul, I let a lot of stuff slide, you know the minor bits of trouble they all get into, thinking it was all part of growing up, but the fiscal situation means that I’m going to be applying the naughtiness criteria a lot more strictly. Be prepared for it. Leave a folder of supporting evidence by the bedside, it will save time.

Of course some things change. I might pop over Italy. I’ve avoided it for several years after Berlusconi suggested I should visit his party after I’d finished my rounds. Very nice it was too, a BBQ, lots of ladies and sambuca . Left the sled outside and went back to check on it a few hours later. One reindeer missing. The little swine had taken one of my finest sleigh pullers and cooked him.

Poor little Bunga Bunga, he was a favorite of mine. For Berlusconi to BBQ him was bad, to then feed him to me was very bad, but to then go on and name his sordid little gatherings after sweet little Bunga Bunga is just grotesque. I’ve not been back since. I would go and see Mario Monti, but, well, what do you buy the man who has… nothing?

The other big news is that I’m leaving the North Pole. It’s melting and I’d rather not take the chance that I’ll be spending the New Year watching my home melt. We had a group of slightly too shiny young things looking the place over for signs of global warming, wanting to “make observations on climate change.” Got ‘em smashed on home brew vodka (aka Santa’s Little Helper), got the elves to strip them down to their underwear and left them on a small iceberg. They looked like Smurfs as they drifted off. Not too sure where, exactly. Let’s say it’s a pretty good bet that they’re heading south.

So are we all. Watching a Herzog film about Antarctica, with the elves and a few drinks, we were stunned to see the South Pole base. Now, we kind of knew that our place was going a bit downhill, but when we saw that base, we all looked at each other and thought. “Nice. We’ll have it.” Already occupied? No problem. I’ve been showing the elves John Carpenter’s remake of ‘The Thing’. They’re finding it inspirational…